Pickard Group-REMAX Suburban

Excellent!!!

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Sue Pickard was extremely professional and provided direct, honest feed back that sold our house in less than 30 days. Highly recommend.

We chose Pickard Group Re-Max because of the great reviews on Angie's List and we were definitely not disappointed. Our experience with the Pickards was excellent from the beginning. Ron Pickard came to our home to help us prepare our house for sale and discuss our needs in a new home. He had already prepared a Market Analysis for selling our home and made sure we had realistic expectations about the housing market before we embarked on this journey. We found him to be personable, knowledgable, and experienced. We were more than a little intimidated about the process of buying and selling in this market and he helped us take it one step at a time the whole way through. Along the way, he was able to recommend a painter/drywaller, an attorney, a home inspector, and a mortgage broker that we used and we were happy with all of them. After we had identified houses we wanted to see, we went house hunting with Ron twice. We saw 13 houses total. Walking through a home with Ron is like going with your own personal Home Inspector. His knowledge of construction and building codes is invaluable and inspires a great deal of confidence. We never felt the slightest pressure from him to make a purchase (in fact, he had a tendency to point out what could be considered downsides or issues with each potential house) and felt he was a great advocate for us throughout. He really helped us focus on how well the house was going to meet our family's needs and wishes and was a wealth of information about how costly making various types of modifications would be. Once we decided on the house we wanted to buy, Ron was a great negotiator on our behalf. He kept in close contact throughout the entire process, calling and emailing regularly. He returned phone calls and emails promptly, including weekends and evenings. Ron and Susan helped us stage our home before we put it on the market. They photographed the house and put together an on-line tour that looked great. Our home was on the market for 8 days and we received 2 offers. Again we felt lucky to have Ron in our corner. He was in constant contact throughout the selling process as well and provided us with excellent advice that ended up saving us a lot of money. We would recommend the Pickards to anyone looking for a realtor. Our friends have said they want to buy a house just so they can work with them. They are friendly, patient, funny and knowledgeable. They were great to work with and we feel very fortunate to have worked with them. We think you can't go wrong choosing the Pickards!

They were recommended on Angie's list. They were nice and very down to earth.

The Pickard Group works on a referral basis and once you work with them, you'll understand why. We mostly worked with Sue, but her husband Ron was also involved with our rental, and their son David is also a realtor in their group. Here are just a few of the great points about working with Sue and the team: -She works with your schedule. For us, that meant meeting at our home and giving us the brief, yet still thorough, version of the home selling/renting/buying process, because we have a toddler running around. -She educates you on the process - whether its renting, buying, selling, etc. Sue knows her stuff and she's very knowledgeable about the Buffalo Grove area, as well. And, she has a whole network of recommended vendors, like lawyers, mortgage brokers, etc., for you to tap into. -She helps you narrow down what you really want in a home. We are very detail-oriented and were spending way too much time pouring over the listings. After an afternoon of showings Sue was able to help us determine what we liked (private master bath, great schools) and what we didn't like (raised ranches, fixer-up-ers) so we could spend less time looking at listings! -She guides you every step of the way, even sending notes to your home about the step of the process you were on. And she's easy to get a hold of if by some chance she didn't answer your question before you even knew to ask it. -Someone else mentioned this and I thought it was a good point - when you have to spend so much time with someone, it doesn't hurt that they are enjoyable company. Sue definitely made our viewing appointments fun and we enjoyed getting to know her over the weeks we worked together. One other thing I wanted to mention - Sue also helped us rent our condo, which we were originally very skeptical about doing. She really warmed us up to the idea and opened our eyes about how you can make it work. This enabled us to get a better house and end up in a better financial position than we would have otherwise. For one month's rent they will help you market your rental and screen tenants. Since Sue and Ron own rental properties themselves, I really trusted their opinion on which tenant to select, and I'd especially recommend them for this service.

Ron Pickard was fully prepared, professional, knowledgeable and in all ways exceeded my expectations. He answered all my questions in full.

Our experience with the Pickard Group has been outstanding from start to finish. Ron is an excellent communicator. He gets along with everyone and yet manages to communicate directly and clearly so that everyone is on the same page and YOU get the best value from the experience. Ron and his wife Sue helped us stage our home and we believe their advice, along with their marketing approach, is what sold our home in a relatively short period of time (about 3 months during the summer of 2011 - many other homes in the neighborhood have been for sale much longer). His research in terms of comps and the resulting advice for pricing our home was very accurate and helped us make good decisions about pricing, adjustments, and final sales price in a buyer's market. At every step, we felt he had our best interests in mind. During negotiations with the buyers regarding the inspection, repairs, etc., we were grateful to have an agent who communicated so effectively with the buyers' agent, lawyer, and home inspector. This process could have easily become much more complicated but was handled with finesse on Ron's part. He definitely has a gift for communication. Ron has also been instrumental in our purchase of our new home. We chose a brand-new home from a builder, but Ron has made sure that we got as much value from the home purchase as possible. Thanks to his insistence we were able to get many, many upgrades that we wouldn't have even dreamed of asking for. He has accompanied us to every meeting and walk-through, has helped us to ask all the right questions and has pointed out several details that we would never have noticed without him. He also helped us select our tile backsplash in the kitchen and it looks great! Ron has been continually available by phone or e-mail, at any time of day, and even over the weekend of his daughter's wedding (sorry, Ron!) He has patiently explained every aspect of the buying and selling process to us and has taken the time to make sure that we had the information we needed to make good decisions. We would not hesitate to recommend the Pickard Group to friends in the Northwest suburbs. I find it impossible to imagine anyone having anything but an excellent experience with Ron as their realtor.

See above.

We moved from Texas to the northern Chicago suburbs, and knew nothing about the area we were moving to. My husband found Ron Pickard and we first began speaking over the phone while scouring through homes via the internet. Then we made 2 trips with Ron over 2 weekends, where he spent the entire days looking through the various cities we were considering. His knowledge base of the various areas was incredible. He was very funny, calm, and his guidance was impeccable. We found a great home and were very happy overall with the entire experience. We consider him to be someone we would use in the future if we need to sell again or refer someone to.

Overall we were very impressed with both Ron and Sue. At the start, we were very nervous about selecting a realtor and worried that as first-time home-buyers, we would be vulnerable to scare-tactics, and we weren't sure if we could trust a realtor's advice. Our good friends reassured us that we should definitely hire their previous realtor. Our friends described the Pickard Group as "sharp, honest, punctual, responsible, and upfront throughout the process". (Later we found out, these same friends had also referred six other families to work with Ron and Sue, and all six families reported good experiences.) Ron was very proactive, intelligent, articulate, and I never had to "track him down" by phone or email -- he either answered right away or responded promptly, which really made my life easier. Ron was a good educator about the home-buying process and steered me away from homes which might be poor investments. He never pressured me to purchase a more expensive home. He has been a good referral source for other related professionals, i.e., home inspectors, attorneys, and mortgage brokers. Finally, Ron is cheerful and a pleasant guy for company as you tour homes...this might seem unimportant, but you spend Hours with these people during stressful house-hunting days, and it really helps if you like the guy!

We had found Sue Pickard in an on line web site for Real estate agents. They were good and worked with us for searching a home. Sue was able to explain to us the pros and cons of buying a home and gave a good summary of homes. Overall they were very professional and result oriented. Only one thing was: a. She was behind us for using their Mortgage broker, which we did not like much. b. There was a water problem in the crawl space and I was talking to my husband about the water issue and related mold, when she heard and said that there was no mold as the inspector said there was no mold. Actually the inspector had said that he could not see any mold and it has to be tested chemically. These kind of statements influences our minds at the time of decision making and would prefer non=pressure env. c. But overall they were good and provided support and we were happy and I might do business with her again.